Eight
A/N: Just wanted to say a huge thank you to those who have left such kind reviews, especially those reviewers who perhaps haven't done so before. It really does make a difference, particularly at the moment, when I feel as if my writing brain is mired in mud. Much love to people reading, I hope there's something in this chapter for you to enjoy.
For the rest of that night he lay and counted the light years between them, one after the other, rolling them through his mind like a building mantra, but still sleep would not come. When Chakotay rose the next morning it was with eyes full of grit and a head stuffed with cotton wool, clogged with thoughts of her. It wasn't a new sensation: in years past there had been plenty of nights where Kathryn Janeway had unwittingly occupied his mind to the point of distraction. But they were long ago. This was now. This was again. Moreover, this was not borne of mystery and curiosity, idle thoughts of things that were not and never could be known. It was, in fact, made of precisely the opposite and Chakotay did not know how to process it. He kept seeing the look in her eye before she had cut short their last call; that bright sadness, a tacit yet unspoken (always unspoken) acknowledgement of something that they had deliberately allowed to slip through their fingers.
Levering himself up from his tousled sheets, Chakotay sat on the edge of his bed for a moment, eyes cast towards the PADD he'd set down on the table that served as a desk. For hours he'd been on the verge of calling her back, but he hadn't. He wondered briefly where the bullish confidence of his youth had gone. There would have been a time where he'd have laughed at the idea of hesitating in such a situation. Wasn't that how he'd ended up dating a captain before now? Time was, if there were a woman he was attracted to, he'd simply make a play for her, whoever she was. No prevarication, no absurd dancing around the matter. If she said no, she said no, and that was that: plenty more fish in the sea, plenty more birds in the sky. Move on and leave no regrets behind. Life was too short to waste on what might have been.
But there was no moving on from Voyager. Or, it seemed, from Kathryn Janeway. He'd like to think it was merely his age, but knew it was more than that. It was, partly at least, what he assumed had been holding Kathryn back all these years: their forced proximity on the ship meant there was no chance of gaining respite or perspective from each other. Whatever happened between them personally, the next morning there they would always have to be, side by side on the bridge of that ship as if nothing had happened at all. There was no chance of a transfer if the relationship soured beyond all recognition – and the past months were testament to just how bitter such an eventuality could become. There was no opportunity for either of them to take leave for a week or two, step out of the common circle of their days to gather their thoughts and breathe different air. Whatever happened, they were trapped in a decaying orbit, held together by an external force that held them fast even as they were crushed within its confines, slowly crumbling but forever static in relation to each other.
Is that why this is happening now? He wondered. We're apart – properly apart – for the first time since we met. Is this what a simple change in perspective has done to us? Made us see ourselves – each other – the way we did at the start?
He knew this had to be the case. There was no other explanation, and besides Chakotay had seen the truth of it at work in other, more professional ways. His fury and disgust at what she had been willing to do to Lessing following their meeting with the Equinox, while in no way removed entirely, had been tempered somewhat. For months the absolute opposition of their approach and the fallout from it had clamped around his mind like a vice with its mechanism rusted shut, immovable. But distance had succeeded in loosening where time had not. For the first time he had begun to think of her actions in a different light. In the early years of their journey Chakotay had privately thought of Kathryn as the greatest victim of their sojourn in the Delta Quadrant, both as a result of her personality (she was naturally hard on herself) and her position as captain (she was professionally required to be hard on herself). Her refusal to cut herself any slack at any time, her absolute insistence that as Captain she bore all the responsibility for their time here, the way she had continued to keep herself at several removes from the crew and therefore from the only society she had access to: at first these things had caused him concern. Yet over time, they had come to seem normal, even to him. He'd forgotten that the very fact they existed were part of what had lodged early as sympathy in his heart. Janeway so steadfastly held herself to be The Captain and never simply Kathryn that Chakotay had forgotten there was indeed a person called Kathryn Janeway beneath the uniform, and that she was as susceptible to damage as any other. He had forgotten, too, that such an isolated life inflicted a daily trauma all of its own, quite apart from the larger crises in which the ship so often found itself embroiled and for which she assumed the responsibility.
The only reason Kathryn Janeway was not suffering with Post Traumatic Stress was because she was in a constant state of trauma and had been so for six years. Chakotay didn't have to consult the EMH to know what the effects of such an experience had on the human psyche and behaviour. He had lived it himself, seen it himself, too many times to count even before he'd boarded Voyager.
He'd been too close to her to see it, Chakotay realised now, though it had been staring him in the face through her wide, blank eyes, eyes he'd barely recognised though he saw them so often. Realising it would not have changed his actions or his opposition to what she had done, but the aftermath… he could have done something then. But he'd begun walking away from her that day and had been steadily putting distance between them ever since. There had been so sign that she cared. He certainly hadn't.
Until now.
Chakotay got up and went into the elegant bathroom that was a staple of Elennial architecture. He stepped beneath the fountain they favoured instead of a shower and made sure the temperature was cool to the point of frigid, hoping the shock to his system would clear the fog from his mind.
It worked, after a fashion. He went about his day with her shadow pushed to the back of his mind, along with the knowledge that, within the bounds of the strange system that had developed between them since his absence from the ship, it was his 'turn' to call her that evening.
He wasn't sure he should, or even if he could. Yet if he didn't, what message would that send to her? What message did he even want to send to her? Recognising the damage in her gave him a responsibility, one that – as with so many other situations in which the two of them found themselves – reached far beyond what he might choose to do on a purely personal level.
And isn't that, he mused, exactly the problem with this relationship? Neither of them could ever be just themselves, not all the time they were on Voyager. There would always be larger issues that had to be taken into consideration, that gave both of them pause and forever made other things more important than the simple, basic question of whether or not they wanted to be together.
Normality was something that had been denied to them even before their first meeting, and everything that came after it was cast in the light of stars denoting a distance of such staggering magnitude that the small shadows of their own wants had been lost amid the understanding of it. For as long as they both lived, they would never have that. They could never have that. That was just the way it was. There was no point in wishing it different. Life was, after all, too short. Address the issue and move on.
Chakotay had to call her. Didn't he? He had to push them past what had happened – or more accurately what had not happened - because if he didn't it could add more damage where there was already too much for one person to bear. He had to start taking some of that weight back again, or the ship could flounder as he had feared it would in the early days. Janeway had firmly shut the door to the tenor of the previous night's conversation by ending it, and that had to be his answer, didn't it? If their conversations had made him realise he loved her, still, in some way that went deeper than all the damage that this Quadrant and they themselves had inflicted on each other, then he had no choice. He had asked, again. She had said no, again. That invisible door had been reached, its handle touched, and in doing so she had redefined it as impenetrable.
And yet-
"All right," said Torres, appearing in front of him with her arms crossed and her jaw locked. "Are you going to tell me what's going on? Or shall I beat it out of you?"
He straightened up from where he'd been leaning against one of the stone consoles she'd been working on. "Excuse me, Lieutenant?"
B'Elanna narrowed her eyes. "Don't even try that one. There's no one here but you and me. Shift ended for everyone else ten minutes ago and the Elennials have gone bouncing off to some practice feast."
Chakotay looked around the workspace and realised that Torres was right. They were alone.
"So?" B'Elanna demanded, her arms still crossed. "I'm waiting."
Chakotay cleared his throat. "I'm fine. Just a little tired. I haven't been sleeping well since we got here, that's all."
"Doesn't explain where your mind has been all day." He looked at her sharply and she shook her head. "I'll bet no one else noticed, but then know one knows you like I do, do they? Something's got into your head. You've been more preoccupied than I've seen you in a long time. What is it? Worried we won't be done by the time we have to leave for the rendezvous?"
"I have faith in you and your team. You'll be ready."
"What is it, then?"
"It's personal, B'Elanna. Can we leave it at that?"
Torres dropped her arms to her sides. "Personal?"
Chakotay turned away from her, wishing he'd never said a thing. "Come on – if the rest of the team's done for the night, then so are you."
"Hey," she said, coming after him and catching his arm. "Look. Joking aside… I'm here. All right? If there's anything you do want to talk about."
Chakotay looked down at her and raised a slight smile. "Dating Paris is making you soft, Torres."
B'Elanna dropped her hand and crossed her arms again instead, her chin jutting in defiance. "And getting old is making you into a grumpy p'tak, Chakotay."
"Watch it," he warned. "I know rank still doesn't mean a whole lot to you, but given that I'm your commanding officer, I'm the one holding the cards and I'm not above playing them."
She narrowed his eyes at him. Chakotay had the distinct feeling that B'Elanna was assessing his mood. All the former Maquis shared a special relationship, one that had only been strengthened by six years together aboard Voyager, but Chakotay's connection to B'Elanna was cut from a different cloth still. He turned away, unwilling to give her a chance to voice whatever it was circling in her mind.
"Come on," he said. "Day's over."
"It's weird, isn't it," she said, falling into step beside him, "being off the ship for so long? I never thought I'd say this, but I miss it."
Chakotay glanced at her. "Well, it's the closest thing we've got to a home out here, and she's served us well for six years."
"I know," B'Elanna agreed, "but I spend every day aboard wishing I could just go out for a walk in fresh air. Here I've got as much of that as I could possibly want - but I'd rather just be back on Voyager."
Chakotay smiled slightly. "It's not the ship you're missing," he told her. "It's Tom."
He'd carried on walking for a few paces before realising that Torres had stopped. Chakotay turned to look back at her.
"What?"
"You said that as if it were a familiar feeling."
Chakotay shrugged. "Guess I'm a little homesick, too."
"For the ship?" she asked. "Or for someone on the ship?"
He started walking again. "You're fishing, B'Elanna."
"Only because I can see there's something to fish for."
"You've picked up entirely too many habits from Paris," he said, over his shoulder.
"If you count caring a bit too much about my commanding officers as a habit, then yes, maybe I have. He's been worried about you both."
Chakotay stopped again. He turned, hands finding his hips. "Both?"
"You and Captain Janeway. Ever since we found the Equinox-"
"How did the Captain end up as part of this?"
B'Elanna gave him a look that managed to be both withering and exasperated at the same time. "Don't play dumb. It doesn't suit you and you know I know you better than that."
Chakotay sighed. "B'Elanna, I have a feeling that whatever you're getting at would be unprofessional even if you hadn't just involved the Captain in the conversation. Since you have, I'm going to insist that you drop this, immediately. Discussing a fellow officer, particularly a superior one, is distinctly inappropriate and I won't tolerate it. Understand?"
B'Elanna shook her head. To Chakotay's surprise, the look that settled on her face was a sad one. "Then how do you get to talk about it?" she asked. "When what you need to talk about is her, who do you get to talk to?"
Chakotay's heart stuttered slightly. "I don't know what you mean, Torres. I don't need to talk about anything or anyone, least of all the Captain. Now, can we drop this, please?"
B'Elanna looked as if she were about to say something else, so he raised a warning hand to ward her off. She sighed and nodded. "All right, all right. Consider it dropped."
"Good," Chakotay said, turning away again. "Let's go and get something to eat. I'm starving."
"I'll join you in a bit," Torres said, falling into step beside him again. "I've got to make a call first."
He frowned. "Oh?"
She looked a little sheepish, but squared her chin in defiance of her embarrassment. "Tom," she said, shortly. "We talk every night once we're both off duty. I'm sure you'll think it's stupid… but I don't sleep properly unless we do. I think it's the same for him. Anything could be happening on the ship and I just - I just like to talk to him. All right? I know that makes me a sad sap."
Chakotay smiled slightly, dipping his chin. "It doesn't," he told her. "As it happens, I know exactly what that's like."
B'Elanna stared at him for a second.
"Don't," he said, before she could say anything. "Just don't."
[TBC]
